Senior writer

Forget stereotypes such as flinty farmers and dust-covered miners. Australians are now more likely to make a living from ''healthcare and social assistance'' than anything else. The latest census revealed that broad employment category as having overtaken retail as Australia's biggest employer.

While mining has been hogging the headlines, the health and social assistance sector has quietly emerged as the nation's jobs powerhouse. It now accounts for more than one in every nine jobs, and in some states the ratio has climbed to nearly one in seven. Mining, by comparison, only employs about one in 50 Australian workers.

The rise of the health and social assistance sector is a great Australian story: not only does it provide more employment than any other, those jobs are focused on helping other people. It includes people who work in hospitals, medical and allied health services, aged care, childcare and other social services such as community health centres. Its 1.2 million-strong workforce is also relatively well educated - about three-quarters hold a post-school qualification, which is well above the national average.

But the success of health and social assistance has got much less attention than it deserves.

Advertisement

One reason is the steady stream of grim news about how some industries, especially manufacturing, are under pressure from structural changes to the economy caused by the minerals boom.

The deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, has pointed out that, notwithstanding low unemployment, there's an unusually high rate of turnover in the Australian labour market at the moment. He estimates that the number of people who left a job over the year to February 2012, as a share of those employed some time during the year, was the highest in two decades.

''The structural changes in the economy are clearly one factor contributing to this movement of people,'' he said in a speech last month.

This jobs churn has left people feeling uneasy. Media reports have probably contributed: we do a much better job at drawing attention to mass lay-offs from a factory than new health workers in suburban hospitals.

Many people seem to have been left with the impression that the labour market is much weaker than it really is. As a consequence, consumers are quite worried about rising unemployment even though the jobless rate is low and fairly steady.

The mood might not be so dark if the health and social assistance sector got more attention. Around 300,000 new jobs have been created nationally in healthcare alone since 2007. The census revealed Sydney's two fastest growing occupations between 2006 and 2011 were caring jobs - personal carers and assistants (up 33 per cent) and child carers (up 32 per cent). The jobs boom in health and social assistance hints at how we've used the dividends of the minerals boom. Deloitte-Access Economics estimates the lasting increase in our terms of trade (the prices we get for exports relative to the prices we pay for imports) has boosted our national income by an average of $165 billion a year since 2003. The census employment figures suggest we're spending a lot of that on our health and well-being.

That should come as no surprise: as societies become wealthier they tend to spend more on their health and physical welfare.

Back in 1971 health expenditure was worth 4.5 per cent of gross domestic product, but now it's 10 per cent. It's an investment that's paying tangible dividends. The life expectancy of Australians has improved by eight years in the past four decades and continues to increase by about three weeks each year. The ageing population means health expenditure is destined to keep growing - the Federal government's intergenerational report predicts it will reach about 18 per cent of GDP by 2050. As a result, employment in the health and social assistance sector, which grew from 10.5 per cent of Australian jobs in 2006 to 11.7 per cent in 2011, will make up an even bigger share in coming decades.

The census data confirms a boom in service industries, related to but distinct from healthcare, which aim to make us feel better. Sydney's fast growing army of fitness trainers is a good example - it expanded by an astonishing 65 per cent between 2006 and 2010. The number of massage therapists in the city rose by more than 28 per cent.

The rise of the healthcare and social assistance sector underscores another important economic trend - the growing influence of women workers. Nearly 80 per cent of the workers in the sector are females.

Women also dominate Australia's second biggest employer - retail trade. Those two top occupational categories now account for more than 22 per cent of Australian jobs. Furthermore, one in every four Sydney employees earning over $100,000-a-year is now a woman.

And guess what? Marketing specialists have found that group is likely to spend a significant portion of income on their fitness, appearance and personal well-being. Amanda Stevens, a marketing consultant who specialises in female spending behaviour, says a regular pedicure, for example, is now ''an important and necessary spending decision'' for many women workers. Investing in health, well-being and even appearance makes financial sense because healthy, well-groomed workers usually do better.

Like every sector, health and social assistance has challenges. Many in the sector are poorly paid, especially in the aged care and childcare. Economists also fret that it will be difficult to raise the productivity of health and caring services.

Even so, the unassuming rise of the healthcare and social assistance sector - and the rapid growth in related services that help us feel better - is something to celebrate.

31 comments

"The rise of the health and social assistance sector is a great Australian story" - really? Please explain how these jobs in the "health and social assitance" sector will help pay for Australia's huge export bill and in turn, the huge debt racked up and wasted by Labor over the last four years?

Commenter

hbloz

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 5:57AM

Most will be involved handing out tissues and back-rubs to folks like yourself when Tony loses the next election.

Commenter

Caffetierra Moka

Location

Sector 7-G

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 6:36AM

Caffetierra Moka - In your dreams! If Labor is not booted out at the next election, then you can look forward to Australia lurching towards the Eurozone debacle - quite appropriate considering Gillard decided to tie the carbon burden she imposed on Australia (which will not reduce global warming one iota) to that of the EU.

Commenter

hbloz

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 7:46AM

Hbloz,

Seriously you really need to take a breath otherwise you will bust a valve, the polls are closing in, this trend has been significant over the last couple of months, The price on Carbon has not resulted in armageddon of monumental proportions as was promised by the Opposition Leader. the rest of the world is taking up pricing carbon, even a number of provinces in China are doing as a re many other Aisan nations, as has California whose economy is much large than ours.

Remember that your best wealth is your health so the health support industry can assist in dealing with your anxiety and even prepare a physical fitness program to help reduce your angst.

I notice that you dont mention the massive and ridiculous cuts to health and education that are occuring in QLD / VIC / NSW

Commenter

Buffalo Bill

Location

Sydneys Northshore

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 8:10AM

Buffalo Bill - Thank you but my blood pressure is just fine (Labor/Gillard notwithstanding). If you sincerely believe the polls, then please do us a favour and convince Gillard to call an election now. Sure, global warming will no longer be an issue because Gillard duplicitously imposed her carbon tax on Australia, China is reducing its carbon emissions - what drugs are you on? " the rest of the world is taking up pricing carbon " - care to remind us how many countries are signing on to Kyoto II? Sure, there is always an endless source of "other peoples" money to pay for Australia's high standard of living. " ..the massive and ridiculous cuts to health and education that are occuring in QLD / VIC / NSW" - what is so "ridiculous" about spending that you can't afford? How do you know the cuts are not in areas of bureaucratic red tape that had grown out of control under years of Labor in government?

Commenter

hbloz

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 8:34AM

Hbloz,

The parliament will run its full term ( much to your displeasure). Glad to see that the price on Carbon hasnt required the need for you to seek medical assistance as I understand that Counselling is a growth industry.

Its irrelevant the Kyoto 2 signature uptake, so by your reasoning we should ( in all matters) just sit on our hands and wait for someone else to do something first?

Oh as I said earlier that your best wealth is your health and any cuts to education and health are abhorent and attacks your and the communities best form of wealth.

It is obvious that the governments in QLD / VIC / NSW treat sick people and not so as more of a cost than an investment and any withdrawal of funding will affect the front line staff either directly or not.

Commenter

Buffalo Bill

Location

Sydneys Northshore

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 9:24AM

This is all part of Labor's fake economy. Hire lots of public servants, administrators, witch doctors and keep the employement figures inflated to show that unemployment is low on their watch. In this way we're all "working" even if we don't produce anything that we can sell to other countries, so that we can generate the revenue to pay all these civil servants and to pay their future "indexed for life" retirement benefits. A shrinking pool of real jobs with real workers is then left to pick up the tab. It's called socialism and we know which party excells at that. This as all our real jobs disappear. America anyone?

Commenter

mina

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 9:34AM

Buffalo Bill - As you are conceding that it is to Gillard's benefit to let "parliament run its full term", then could all apologists for the duplicitous Gillard please stop saying she had no choice but to impose the carbon tax (repeat, tax) because of the hung parliament. Why would the carbon tax require me to "seek medical assistance"? How is the "the Kyoto 2 signature uptake" irrelevant when you claim "the rest of the world is taking up taxing carbon"? Especially when the players that matter i.e. China, India, USA (even Canada and Japan) are not signatories. "... we should just sit on our hands and wait for someone else to do something first" - for the umpteenth time, by how much does Gillard's duplicitously imposed carbon tax allieviate global warming? Do you know have any idea how much "administrators" i.e.bureaucrats are paid under Labor's burgeoning bureaucracy and how many such "administrators" there are?

Commenter

hbloz

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 10:14AM

Obviously they won't.

Neither will tying Australia's fortunes to the vagaries of the commodities markets.

This is another plea for Australia to capitalise on its strength in research and to fund commercialisation.

Commenter

Evan Hadkins

Location

Sydney

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 10:47AM

Of course its in the government of the days interest to run full term, unless they are well ahead in the polls then they will more than likely "go early"

No Gillard and Rudd wanted an CPRS in 2007 also Howard went to the 2007 election with a shock horror an ETS. And both parties wish to reduce emmissions by 5% and all economists have stated that pricing carbon was the most economical way to do

You appear to be flogging (obsessing over) a dead horse with the Carbon pricing, I do not want you to throw a shoulder out or suffer some mental health issue because you are not gaining the traction you thought you would

China (Quong Dong province and others) is very interested in the Carbon pricing model, and recently Obama has indicated his interest too. Its better to be a leader than a follower especailly as the rest of the world is gravitating to a low emissions future..

As I asserted before any cuts to the Education / Health budget will affect Front Line staff, especially with an ageing population,and increasing mental health issues. People are an investment not just a cell in an excel spreadsheet